Forum Moderators: skibum
For the third time in a row, LinkShare Corporation, one of the Web's largest affiliate networks, awarded and then revoked its $15,000 quarterly prize to a company accused of diverting commissions from other affiliates in the network to itself.
Shame that it takes that much exposure for them to find these guys. All the others that didn't get an award are still business as usual.
Anybody have an opinion?
Click Fraud NYTimes Article [webmasterworld.com]
Linkshare still gets their commissons regardless of who's cookie is set, it is still their cookie. The only loser is the affiliate who plays by the rules.
Perhaps some bad press will help, but probably not.
They also seem to be making some more serious efforts to detect bad practices--but read the whole article for the details.
They also seem to be making some more serious efforts to detect bad practices...
I'm not saying you're wrong. But I'm not saying you're right, either.*
LinkShare crowned a cheater as their King of the Affs. It wasn't until the affs cried foul that Linkshare got a clue. Not a good sign.
*Jim Thompson
They also seem to be making some more serious efforts
The operative word there is "seem".
Linkshare still gets their commissons regardless of who's cookie is set, it is still their cookie. The only loser is the affiliate who plays by the rules.
Perhaps some bad press will help, but probably not."
I don't agree at all. affiliates make networks their big money, and parasite-free networks are much, much more attractive to "honest" affils. the more affils join, the more they make.
LinkShare isn't keeping the money.
The money as in the drop-in-the-bucket one-time cash prize?
or
The money as in all of the last year's 'diverted' commissions?
No, don't get me wrong, I don't endorse such practises, but unless LShare made it clear at the get go that no unethical techniques could be used by affiliates who qualified for the prize, they have a duty to deliver.
It's also kinda hypocritical to deny a charitable donation on a technicality - if the poster above was right about the cash going to a charity.
Why don't they just award it to the next highest earner?
Could you imagine if they had to explain why they had to revoke that one, too?
Maybe they should allocate the awards from the bottom. Those are the folks most likely playing fair. It could be the only money some of them make.
What begins as a tool to try and motivate affiliates to reach the top tiers of success with LinkShare ends up demotivating them.
Why don't they just award it to the next highest earner?
LOL, they did, that site was crooked too:) so the cash went to a charity instead. Those winners have probably generated hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts, maybe a million plus. The 15k prize is probably a drop in the bucket.
How do you go back and explain to your merchants that they potentially collectively paid out millions of dollars in commissions for sales where no one clicked on a link to the merchant site?
OTOH, the merchants that ran these affiliate programs were cutting lots of fat checks each month. When you dish out that kind of cash, wouldn't you do some spot check of your own? Unless LS claims to weed out this type of thing, surely they can't be held soley responsible.
Is it technically difficult to take the top 10 or 50 earners and scrutinize them?
Good programming, from the ground up, can overcome technical difficulties. Personally I can't even begin to grasp the complexity for monitioring compliance in real time. I do think it would be fun to work in that office for the next year. And frankly, I would not limit any scrutiny to the top earners. Everyone gets the eye, and the top earners get an audit.
Or is this a case of laziness on LinkShare's part?
It could be laziness, ineptitude, greediness, or something else. Whatever it is, it seems that LS has taken steps to help overcome this problem. It better be more than window dressing, or they'll see a lot more messages ala FromRocky.
Anybody have an opinion?
>jcoronella wrote:
[the network] still gets their commissons regardless of who's cookie is set, it is still their cookie. The only loser is the affiliate who plays by the rules.
This only applies to the cookie stuffers who overwrite another aff's cookie. In the case of a rogue BHO/App writing cookies before a user visits the merchant, the networks are pocketing a *TON* of money that they wouldn't otherwise receive for sales that would have gone to the merchant anyway. The merchant would lose BIG if/when this happens.
